


ironically

by the_garbage_will_do



Series: reyuxmas [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: "hatred", Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Comedy, F/M, First Kiss, Meta, Music, Underage Drinking, hints of deeply unrequited kylux, hints of deeply unrequited reylo, reyux bonds over their shared hatred for kylo ren's music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21552439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_garbage_will_do/pseuds/the_garbage_will_do
Summary: “This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for Kylo Ren’s second album,” Armitage observes, “for being a flaming wreck so noxious it makes his first album seem all right by comparison.”For a minute the only sound comes from Maz’s service dog Chewie, whining by his empty bowl.Then a quiet voice issues from a few chairs over: “Wait. You also hate Kylo Ren?”
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rey, background Finn/Poe Dameron/Rose Tico
Series: reyuxmas [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620592
Comments: 18
Kudos: 52
Collections: Reyuxmas 2019





	ironically

Every Thanksgiving, the students who stay at Arkanis Academy over break sit down to dinner together to reflect deeply on their blessings.

“This Thanksgiving I’m thankful for my wonderful partners, and for the fact that my mom came home safe from her deployment,” says Poe.

“This Thanksgiving I am overflowing with gratitude for you and Rose, and for the free press that combats all the gaslighting and brainwashing in our society,” says Finn.

“This Thanksgiving I am thankful to be in love with the both of you, and I’m grateful for the work of conservation and animal-rights activists,” says Rose.

“This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for Kylo Ren’s second album,” Armitage observes, “for being a flaming wreck so noxious it makes his first album seem all right by comparison.”

For a minute the only sound comes from Maz’s service dog Chewie, whining by his empty bowl.

A quiet voice issues from a few chairs over: “Wait. You also hate Kylo Ren?”

Across the table, Rey and Armitage’s eyes meet.

.

“The critics are all raving over the album,” Rey mutters sotto voce, once they’ve escaped the group with their post-dinner drinks. “But why? It makes _literally_ zero sense.”

“You just explained it,” Armitage replies. “The critics are raving: stark raving mad.”

She snorts and chokes on her cider.

“Now, _I_ haven’t heard the whole album through,” Armitage drawls the second she recovers. “I refuse to give that man a cent. But I listened to every one of those Youtube uploads before the lawyers sniped them. And I must give a _million_ thanks to myself for not wasting my money.”

Rey narrows her eyes at Armitage and his Thanksgiving-themed Vineyard Vines sweatshirt, its smiley pink whale stuffed inside a cornucopia. “Can you keep a secret?”

“I have _plenty_ of experience in that department.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Well, a boycott is fine. But if you’re willing to get your hands dirty? The best protest is _piracy.”_

“Are you saying…”

“Come up to my room and hear the whole thing,” Rey whispers in a conspiratorial manner. “It’s even worse than you think.”

“It can’t be,” he scoffs. “I’ve revised my expectations a hundred times for Kylo, they can’t go any lower.”

.

_I’ve given it all to dark side_  
_Got split to the bone_  
_Do you care how long I’ve waited and cried?_  
_No, you don’t, no, you don’t_  
_All I care is I can never go home  
Never go hoooooome!_

Armitage gags, hands rising to his neck as if he’s choking. “When you tricked me into listening to this, you _violated the Geneva Convention.”_

Rey lets out a victorious whoop.

.

“No, I will not surrender the point,” Rey snaps an hour later. “The worst song on the album is clearly ‘Not To Me.’ The chorus _alone_ sets women back a hundred years—"

“That may be,” Armitage strikes back, pacing her dorm room. “But how can you ignore ‘Supreme Leader’? It’s logically inconsistent— is the Supreme Leader dead? Is he alive? Who the hell knows, not Kylo Ren!”

“But the politics of ‘Not To Me’—”

“The politics of ‘Supreme Leader’ are completely incoherent! The narrator boasts about ruling the galaxy, but with what agenda? What philosophy? There’s some vague authoritarian rumblings but beyond that—”

A bloody battle between two equally matched foes, their fight rages past dawn.

.

Rey knocks on Armitage’s door the next day.

“I didn’t want to leave things like that, so I offer a truce.”

He regards her with an expression of pure ice.

“No matter what the worst song is on _this_ album,” she says, “it can’t be worse than ‘The Bridge.’”

He melts.

“Right, what _was_ that?” he squawks. “You’d think a song titled ‘The Bridge’ would have a cogent bridge section, and screaming ‘Thank you’ until your mic shorts out does _not_ count!”

“Plus don’t forget that monologue,” she grimaces. “You know, the whole speech about patricide? It’s so…”

“Creepy,” she finishes, just as Armitage says, “Close to home.”

Rey frowns.

“I meant ‘creepy!’”

.

Finn pokes his head into Rey’s room one day. “I saw that review you two wrote up on Facebook, of Kylo’s new album. And I’m...still going to buy it, but it was cool reading your perspective.” 

“Thank you,” Rey says. She and Armitage barely look up from her computer, fixated on the newest glowing review of Kylo’s album from a so-called “professional” music critic. 

“It’s just…” Finn struggles for words. “That was a lot of analysis you did. Once you looked at all the tie-ins with Gothic literature—”

“Don’t forget the Ancient Greek,” Armitage murmurs.

“Exactly! And did you really memorize the entire album’s lyrics as part of your research?”

They both nod.

“It’s called charitable reconstruction,” adds Armitage.

“And after all that, you really thought the album deserved negative-one stars?”

Rey gives him the same reply they’ve already used on twenty commenters online: “We stand by our reporting.”

“Oh. Well. You do you!” Finn gives them a jaunty wave before escaping.

.

“There’s no scrubbing the internet clean, but I wish I had the money,” Rey scowls the day Kylo’s new album goes platinum, “to buy out all the physical CDs and burn them.”

“Way ahead of you— I already calculated how much TNT you’d need. _I_ wish…” Armitage purses his lips, thinking deeply. “I wish I could sue him for how ‘Just You’’s gotten stuck in my head. It’s a parasitic earworm—”

“‘Catchy’ like the stomach flu—"

“And he should pay for surgical removal!”

On cue they high-five.

.

 _armitage_   
_armitage  
WAKE UP ARMITAGE_

_It’s 3am._

_yeah yeah you know how Kylo says he wears the mask for “symbolism”  
_ _but really its because he sucks at singing and he needs the autotune filtery thing_

_I thought we gave up this theory when we found those acoustic covers. His delivery is...shall we say overwrought, but the underlying technique isn’t totally irredeemable._

_BUT ARMITAGE I FOUND THE TRUTH_  
_IT’S NOT RELALY KYLO IN THE ACOUSTIC VIDEOS_  
_IT’S THIS OTHER GUY MATT_  
_Kylo’s sound technician or maybe someone else???_  
_i got confused, it’s 3am  
BUT I FOUND THIS YOUTUBE VIDEO EXPOSING THE WHOLE SWITCHAROO AND YOU HAVE TO SEE_

_...Hit me._

_oho youre into that ;-)_

_It’s a respectable idiom from a card game! I just mean you should send me the link._

_sure jan_

.

“Hey.” Rose barges into Rey’s room, not even remotely surprised to find Armitage curled on the bed beside her. “Did you guys seriously submit a _newspaper op-ed_ about the dangers of Kylo Ren? You know, that’s space that could go to _real issues!”_

“This _is_ a real issue,” Armitage declares, shooting upright. “It’s a menace to society. The more people listen to him, the more the cultural Zeitgeist gets infiltrated by his dribble, the dumber your country gets!”

“I’m in the next room,” Rose bites back. “This wall is thin. I know for a fact that all you two listen to is Kylo Ren!”

“Yes, but for us it’s a scholarly exercise!”

“Yeah,” Rey protests, “we only listen to Kylo Ren _ironically.”_

“Instead of pouring all your spare time into fighting something you hate,” Rose sighs, “wouldn’t you like to...I don’t know. Save what you love?”

Rey and Armitage look at each other and then reply in unison. “Nope.”

.

_Come on, baby girl, I could show you the ways_  
_Of this cosmic force, gimme your nights and your days_  
_You’re my sweet dream girl and I’m your nightmares’ black creature_  
_But the sobbing throbbing fact remains…  
You need a TEACHER!_

“I can’t believe people think this song is sexy.”

Armitage glowers. “Who thinks it’s sexy?”

“Look at the Youtube comments.” She flips her screen around. “That second guy says he made out with his girlfriend to this song and apparently it was awesome.”

“That’s preposterous.”

They lock eyes and then roll their eyes in perfect harmony.

Armitage looks back down, glaring at that comment. “Of course, it’s impossible to disprove a thesis, no matter how ridiculous, without hard counterevidence.”

Once again his eyes drift back up to hers.

_The ground quaaaaaakes_  
_(I could have been your teacher)_  
_And its breaaaaaks_  
_(Now I can’t even reach ya)_  
_And it splits in two parts_  
_(I swore that I could read ya)_  
_As you leave me on the ice_  
_(The truth is just that I need ya)_  
_With a hole in my heart…  
A BLEEDING HOLE IN MY HEART!_

The song fades, and their lips break apart. Rey blinks.

“That was...the worst. Right?” 

“...Obviously. Atrocious.” 

Armitage looks out to the icicles framing Rey’s window, certain his heart’s just been cleaved by one.

.

“Hey, Rey? I know we haven’t talked since we...er. But it occurred to me that Kylo Ren’s ‘Starkiller’ is plagiarized line for line from ‘Death Star’ by Empire, and well, I might have made you a Powerpoint. I can show you if you’re interested...”

“Sure, let’s do it.”

“It’s a little long.”

“I don’t think I’ll mind,” she says, blushing.

.

“So,” Poe says over dinner, “you two started a band to cover Kylo Ren songs.”

“It’s a moral obligation,” Armitage says. 

Rey elaborates: “The songs are bad, but Kylo’s delivery and Snoke’s production are like salt in an ugly wound. We _had_ to try and fix the mess.”

“So. You two decided to start a Kylo Ren tribute band because of how much you hate Kylo Ren.”

“Yep.”

“Exactly!”

Poe nods slowly. “Just making sure I got it.”

.

Rey— always hot— sits in shorts and a T-shirt by her open window, relishing the icy breeze and smacking her lips. Armitage has cozied up beside her under multiple coats, black-gloved fingers curled around a bottle of gingerbread-flavored Kahlua. 

When Rey reaches out, he trades the Kahlua for her peppermint cordial.

“This is the classy stuff,” Rey declares, taking a long draught of gingerbread liqueur.

“I don’t go in for beer and vodka and...everything Kylo Ren’s always blathering on about,” Armitage replies, also sipping straight from his bottle. “It’s so irresponsible of him, glamorizing alcohol to impressionable teens.”

He sweeps a sloppy hand towards the window, gesturing to all the lost impressionable teens outside their room.

“I watched the first bootleg from his new tour,” she says. “His mask looks even _worse_ now.”

“How is that possible?”

“The footage is a bit grainy, but…I think he put red Scotch tape all over it.”

Armitage gasps. “No!”

“Yes,” she insists before dissolving into giggles. “But.”

“But?”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Anything.”

“You promise you won’t tell?”

“Who am I going to tell?”

“Even if you end up concerned about my…” She contemplates her phrasing for a full five seconds before slurring, “mental stability?”

“...I reserve the right to call 911.”

Rey snorts. “Well, the truth is— did you see that new spread Kylo did in _Vanity Fair_?”

“Ugh. Yes.”

“And obviously they should fire his stylist even before they fire him because the waist on those pants is at least a foot too high, and it’s blatant pandering to skip the shirt, but.” She inhales deeply, steeling herself. “I thought those pics were kinda hot.”

“...Wow.”

“I know,” she groans. “You’re going to write me out of your will for this.”

“Uh. Can _you_ keep a secret?”

“Anything.”

“You know how his lips look like he tried to augment them but the surgeon used too much filler?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s a humiliating show of bad taste on my part, but...I want to lick them.”

“Same.”

“Ironically.”

“Same.”

“We’ll never speak of this again.”

“Never.”

.

“Hey,” Armitage says. “You’ll be here for Christmas, right?”

“Nowhere else to go,” answers Rey.

“Great! No. Terrible, but…” He breathes in and composes himself. “My father just scheduled a business trip to Shanghai, so I’ll be staying here too.”

She instantly brightens at the thought. “Kylo’s doing that New Year’s concert, we can trash the livestream together!”

“I thought that, but...my dad decided to give me two tickets.”

Her jaw drops.

“He’s trying to buy my forgiveness, and he never listens or tries to understand me, and just because I talk about Kylo Ren all the time he concluded I must _like his music_ or something,” Armitage says in a rush.

“Noooo!”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and gives a self-pitying sigh. “I’ll live. But now I’ve got these bloody tickets.”

“Scalp them.”

He chuckles. “Actually, I thought I might just go. In case Kylo sets himself on fire with that phallic glow-stick again.”

“If you take Finn,” Rey says, “he’ll write your ethics papers for a year.”

“Oh, please. Like I could stand a whole concert with anyone who hates Kylo Ren less than I do.”

They both gulp hard.

“Would you—“

“Definitely.”

“I just didn’t know if you were interested—“

“I am, I totally am. Not in Kylo Ren, just in…”

She trails off and simply gazes at Armitage instead. His face goes red as his hair.

“If you want,” he adds, “I can ask Father to get us front-row seats.”

“Yeah,” she says breathlessly, “that way Kylo will hear us when we boo.”

“So you’ll go out with me?”

“Yeah.”

“And we’ll see Kylo together?”

“Ironically.”

He grins, matching her brilliant smile. “At this point, the irony goes without saying.”


End file.
